Chamisa’s Agenda 2020 address to the nation

Breaking Barriers Initiative (BBI)

This year, 2020, is the people’s year to start the people’s decade.

It is the year of the people’s action.

This is the year when something must and will give. This year is our revolutionary moment.

A new page must be turned in the making of a new Zimbabwe, whose journey was started by the MDC when the glorious movement of the people first entered Parliament in 2000. But for us to turn the required page in 2020, we must extend our hand, our open hand of peace, of democracy, of human rights and of sustainable development; to our neighbours, friends, comrades and compatriots.

The change we have sought as the MDC is not change for us as a political party but change for us as Zimbabweans.

That is why we have become a people’s movement. Our political party is an instrument for change meant to benefit each and every Zimbabwean regardless of who they are, their station in life, their tribe, their national origin, their totem or even their political affiliation.

In order for the people to stamp their authority on 2020 as the people’s year to kick start the people’s decade, it is important for us to understand that where and when the people have spoken, as they did on 30 July 2018, the people must act to implement what they have said.

Politics is not about words but about action. In the best political traditions, praxis, that is action, has always defined politics. This is an existential truth. That is why, in the final analysis, we are judged not by what we say but by what we do or do not do. It is the sins of commission and omission that shall follow us.

As we christen 2020, the year of the people’s action, I’m happy to announce the launch today of the Breaking Barriers Initiative (BBI), from my office as MDC president, designed to enable the people of Zimbabwe from across the full political spectrum of our nation to act together, support each other and speak with one voice beyond political boundaries and divisions created by the mashurugwi regime which have built artificial barriers between and among Zimbabweans.

Our BBI seeks to bridge and break the negative barriers that have developed between and among us Zimbabweans over the last 40 years, and which have thus come in the way of real change, especially over the last two decades, to the detriment of the people and the advantage of the regime’s merchants of division.

The BBI has the following objectives:

• Foster and engender the development, articulation and celebration of a community-based, dynamic, multicultural, multi-ethnic, multiracial, multilingual, multi-religious, intergenerational and progressive national identity of being a Zimbabwean which has an inclusive spirit de corps;
• Facilitate structured and inclusive conversations among Zimbabweans on their welfare, well-being, livelihoods, national interest and priorities on such issues as infrastructural development, food security, job creation, water and sanitation;
• Create local and national platforms for common action in the defence of the rule of law, human rights and basic freedoms for all Zimbabweans;
• Support the development, incubation and promotion of technological and engineering solutions to fight anderadicate poverty, hunger and disease in the country; and,
• Promote the teaching, learning and application of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics STEMin primary, secondary, tertiary and university education to empower the youth, develop a knowledge-based and technological driven economy, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and propel Zimbabwe into the fourth industrial revolution.
• Engage Zimbabwe’s friends and cooperating partners in the international community to rationalise their humanitarian support and developmental projects to ensure they benefit the people of Zimbabwe in their communities.

Continued next page

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